Chapter 36 Slammed
SLAMMED
Casey
The unposted post bothered me.
My social media manager had alerted me to it this morning in a text. Not sure if this is anything, but check this out. ConroySolutions: Can’t wait for Wednesday’s news.
That was bad enough. What was more concerning was the post’s life.
It had lasted for all of thirteen seconds.
The social media manager’s software scoured the social web regularly, so if a post existed that we needed to know about, we heard about it.
Killing a post didn’t make it cease to exist. It only made the absence more worrisome.
Tomorrow’s story could be anything. It could be about a new deal revealing Conroy’s reach with his development plans.
Or it could be about something else entirely.
But given that Eden and I hoped to dominate social media with our change-the-conversation news flood in a few more days, I didn’t like the enemy playing in my sandbox, nor preening over it in advance.
That’s why I was back in my borrowed wig at the art gallery Rebel on Third and Seventy-Sixth, nibbling on a cracker and pretending to sip wine as the Conroy Commercial Crooks chatted up some wealthy collectors in the corner.
He stood next to a pricey piece of abstract art, and I half wondered if the image of a red square inside a blue circle was real or a projection of the alarm going off in my brain.
I’d infiltrated the event in the simplest way possible—buying a ticket under a fake name chosen to sound like it would fit in.
Arabella Rittenbacher was not a fan of abstract art, I decided.
Not tonight’s, at least. It was bold enough to jump out yet still bland enough to be distasteful.
Not unlike Conroy’s planned apartments. Oh, excuse me—short-term rentals disguised as housing.
I had hoped I’d be able to pick up a clue, any clue, simply by circulating.
I’d figured out the baby-faced man was his PR guy, the blond man was his assistant, and that the guy with slick dark hair was an old tech bro of his from California.
I’d put those pieces together from my earlier digging.
But I couldn’t figure out who the guy in the suit with the short dark hair was.
He wore thick, black glasses, and he had the PR guy’s ear, whispering throughout the event. Doing the dirty work, no doubt.
I took my phone from my clutch, pretended Arabella Rittenbacher was a bit farsighted and needed to hold the phone out to see it properly, and snapped a shot of the two of them.
Casually, I mingled and circulated, enjoying the character I was playing as I walked past them a few times.
But by the time the event started to wind down, I’d learned nothing more about tomorrow’s news.
I hoped it was about some ludicrously overpriced piece Conroy was buying to impress people, and that it had simply been a social media slip-up that the post had been deleted. Those probably happened all the time.
Even so, I dumped the photos in a reverse image search when I returned home to my laptop. I found the guy with glasses. He was second-in-command at a firm that specialized in ‘targeted strategic campaigns.’ I googled him some more, and found his nickname:
The Spin Doctor.
The moniker made my skin crawl. I closed my laptop. I fired off some of the photos to my brother, adding my usual assortment of silly captions.
If the sex toy business went down in flames, at least Arabella Rittenbacher could live on if I became a private detective.
Michelle
I looked at Jack as the plane landed.
He blinked once, then twice as the jet applied the brakes when the wheels touched the runway. He winced as he stared hard at his phone, scrolling slowly with his thumb. He shut his eyes, squeezed them tight, and it seemed as if he were wishing away what he was reading.
Wrapping a hand around his arm, I asked him if everything was okay. Before he could answer, my phone buzzed, coming alive again now that we were on the ground.
“No,” he whispered in a strangled voice.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, and my phone buzzed again, then bleated loudly. I snapped my eyes to the screen out of habit. Davis. He never called my work phone.
A chill ran through my bones as I answered.
“Hello?”
“Are you okay?” he asked, and my heart seized up when I heard his voice.
This was how he sounded the night he’d told me our parents had died.
He was the one who had answered the door when the police officer knocked to deliver the news about the fatal accident on the icy road.
He was the one who’d found me in my bedroom upstairs, listening to music, and turned off the radio to tell me.
He was the one who had delayed college for a year to help me finish high school because we were suddenly all alone.
Just the sound of his voice sent me back to that night, but I couldn’t figure out what the hell he could be calling about now.
The worst had happened. There was no one left but us. Unless something had happened to Jill.
A lump rose up in her throat. “Is Jill okay?”
“Jill’s fine. You didn’t see the story, did you?”
“No. I just landed,” I said, voice shaky. “What is it? Just tell me.”
“I’m waiting at baggage claim for you. It’s not good, Michelle.”
Shame spilled over me in waves as my mind raced through possibilities. Pictures of me and Jack in the perfume shop doorway, on the train, even at LeGrand Colbert. Oh Lord, had my skirt blown up? Had someone seen that jewel in my ass?
But that would have been welcome compared to the story.
Jack handed me his phone, and wrapped an arm around me as I read. “None of it is true. We’ll fix it. I promise. I swear,” he said, kissing my forehead as the written words sliced through me like sharp knives, chopping my career to tiny pieces.
Sex Toy Mogul Becomes Sex Therapist for Shrink
By Staff
Today we learned that a certain prominent therapist’s couch folds out into a bed. And who’s the bedfellow for this *cough, cough* intimate relationship therapist? (Intimate indeed!)
None other than New York City’s most eligible bachelor. Jack Sex-Toy-Mogul Sullivan has been providing sex therapy for a sex therapist.
The therapist, Michelle Milo, who heads up several prominent New York City professional organizations and supposedly counsels patients on all their intimate issues, didn’t wait long to pounce on her celebrity patient.
(Can’t blame you, Dr. Milo, he’s a hottie!) They’ve been playing sexual healing games since he began seeing her to mend his broken heart. Hell, did she ever do a bang-up job!
You may recall they were spotted at dinner and at the symphony, and we’ve learned their relationship didn’t start with such innocent dates. It began in the most forbidden way! Scandalous!
Sources tell us their relationship started in her office when he went to see her to cure his woes.
Poor guy has been missing his deceased fiancée, the Olympic medalist Aubrey Sheen, and Dr. Milo gave him a little loving between the sheets to make him all better. Evidently, he’s done the same for her.
She first treated him at her office in an intake appointment that involved more than just talking. She then bumped him to special patient status, beginning “therapy” sessions, as they referred to them, after hours.
“Looking forward to another ‘therapy’ session with you this evening,’ he told her, to which she replied, “Will you be bringing any battery-operated friends?” The answer?
When he plays sex therapist for her, he brings along his products.
Well, duh. He IS a sex toy mogul. We just want to know which models you use, Jack.
You know, so we can try them in our therapy games too.
Patients of Dr. Milo might want to consider themselves warned. We have it on good authority he gave her the business in her office. Bring hand sanitizer before you bare your soul to the *cough, cough* intimate relationship therapist.
His phone clattered to the carpet of the plane with a dull thud.
My hands shook. My chest heaved, and shame flooded my veins from head to toe.
My insides were mangled, like a rusty saw digging through my chest, carving up pieces of my organs.
Serving them to the press. I could smell the acrid scent of my career going up in flames as my reputation was burned at the stake.
Someone had clearly hacked my private emails with Jack, and twisted our inside jokes and our naughty notes into a sordid story, making public what was supposed to be private, and what was so very personal.
I dropped my head to my knees. The flight attendant stopped and asked if I needed a bag. I waved her off as dry heaves wracked my body. Jack rubbed my back, tried to comfort me, to tell me he’d get to the bottom of this. But even if he did, the damage was done.